Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, wants to talk to the Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. employees who reportedly helped set up Philidor Rx Services Inc., the specialty pharmacy the drug company recently broke ties with after some questionable business practices came to light.

Companies operating in the EU will have better protection against the theft or misuse of trade secrets such as manufacturing processes and specific technology, together with a new EU-wide definition of a trade secret, under draft rules passed yesterday by the European Parliament's legal affairs committee.

A three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York on 22 May upheld a lower court's ruling ordering Actavis to keep its twice-daily immediate-release version of its Alzheimer's drug Namenda (memantine hydrochloride) on the US market – declaring the firm's plan for a "forced switch" to a newer version before generics are available is "coercion" and "anticompetitive."

Actavis tried to persuade a three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York on 13 April to lift an injunction imposed by a lower court preventing the company from pulling its twice-daily immediate-release version of its Alzheimer's dementia drug Namenda (memantine hydrochloride) from the US market in light of a more updated form of the medicine.